211 MANIFESTO AND PROGRAM 210 THE CLASS STRUGGLE sions to democracy on the one hand, and its commercial rivalries, armament rings and standing armies on the other, all based on the exploitation of the working class and the division of the loot, was cast into the furnace of war. Two things only could issue forth; either international capitalist control, through a League of Nations, or Social Revolution and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Both of these forces are today contending for world power.
The Social Democracies of Europe, unable or unwilling to meet the crisis, were themselves hurled into the conflagration to be tempered or consumed by it.
THE COLLAPSE OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL Great demonstrations were held in every European country by Socialists protesting against their governments declarations of war, and mobilizations for war, And we know that these demonstrations were rendered impotent by the complete surrender of the Socialist parliamentary leaders and the official Socialist press, with their justifications of defensive wars and the safeguarding of democracy.
Why the sudden change of front? Why did the Socialist leaders in the parliaments of the belligerents vote the war credits? Why did not Moderate Socialism carry out the policy of the Basle Manifesto, namely: the converting of an imperialistic war into a civil war into a proletarian revolution? Why did it either openly favor the war or adopt a policy of petty bourgeois pacifism?
THE DEVELOPMENT OR MODERATE SOCIALISM In the latter part of the nineteenth century, the Social Democracies of Europe set out to legislate Capitalism out of office. The class struggle was to be won in the capitalist legislatures. Step by step concessions were to be wrested from the state; the working class and the Socialist parties were to be strengthened by means of constructive reform and social legislation; each concession would act as a rung in the ladder of Social Revolution, upon which the workers could climb step by step, until finally, some bright sunny morning, the peoples would awaken to find the Cooperative Commonwealth functioning without disorder, confusion or hitch on the ruins of the capitalist state.
And what happened? When a few legislative seats had been secured, the thunderous denunciations of the Socialist legislators suddenly ceased. No more were the parliaments used as platforms from which the challenge of revolutionary Socialism was flung to all the corners of Europe. Another era had set in, the era of constructive social reform legislation. Dominant Moderate Socialism accepted the bourgeois state as the basis of its action and strengthened that state. All power to shape the policies and tactics of the Socialist parties was entrusted to the parliamentary leaders. And these lost sight of Socialism original purpose; their goal became constructive reforms and cabinet portfolios the cooperation of classes, the policy of openly or tacitly declaring that the coming of Socialism was a concern of all the classes, instead of emphasizing the Marxian policy that the construction of the Socialist system is the task of the revolutionary proletariat alone. Moderate Socialism accepted the bourgeois state as the leaders, was now ready to share responsibility with the bourgeoisie in the control of the capitalist state, even to the extent of defending the bourgeoisie against the working class as in the first Briand Ministry in France, when the official party press was opened to a defense of the shooting of striking railway workers at the order of the Socialist Bourgeois Coalition Cabinet. SAUSAGE SOCIALISM This situation was brought about by mixing the democratic cant of the eighteenth tury with scientific Socialism. The result was what Rosa Luxemburg called sausage Socialism. The Moderates emphasized petty bourgeois social reformism in order to attract tradesmen, shop keepers and members of the professions, and, of course, the latter flocked to the Socialist movement in great numbers, seeking relief from the constant grinding between corporate capital and awakening labor.
The Socialist organizations actively competed for votes, on the basis of social reforms, with the bourgeois liberal political parties.
And so they catered to the ignorance and prejudices of the workers, Dominant moderate Socialism forgot the teachings of the founders of scientific Socialism, forgot its function as a proletarian movement the most resolute and advanced section of the workingclass parties and permitted the bourgeois and self seeking trade union elements to shape its policies and tactics. This was the condition in which the Social Democracies of Europe found themselves at the outbreak of war in 1914. Demoralized and confused by the cross currents within their own parties, vacillating and compromising with the bourgeois state, they fell a prey to social patriotism and nationalism.
SPARTACIDES AND BOLSHEVIKI But revolutionary Socialism was not destined to lie inert for long. In Germany, Karl Liebknecht, Franz Mehring, Rosa Luxemburg and Otto Ruhle organized the Spartacus Group. But their voices were drowned in the roar of cannon and the shrieks of the dying and maimed.
Russia, however, was to be the first battle ground where moderate and revolutionary Socialism should come to grips for the mastery of the state. The breakdown of the corrupt, bureaucratic Czarist régime opened the flood gates of Revolution.
Three main contending parties attempted to ride into power on the revolutionary tide; the Cadets, the moderate Socialists (Menheviki ar Social Revolutionists. and the revolutionary Socialists, the Bolsheviki. The Cadets were first to be swept into power; but they tried to stem the still rising flood with a few abstract political ideals, and were soon carried away. The soldiers, workers, and peasants could no longer be fooled by phrases. The Mensheviki and Social Revolutionaries succeeded the Cadets. And now came the crucial test: would they, in accord with Marxian teachings, make themselves the ruling class and sweep away the old conditions of production, and thus prepare the way for the Cooperative Commonwealth? Or would they tinker with the old machinery and try to foist it on the masses as something just as good?
They did the latter and proved for all time that moderate Socialism cannot be trusted. Moderate Socialism was not prepared to seize the power for